Cellular telephones and other “smart” devices have become ubiquitous in today's society. And, due to the inherent portability of most smart devices, a consumer's personal smart device may be easily taken with a person to almost any location. Consequently, a smart device, such as a smart phone, is not just a useful tool of communication but it may also be used as a tracking device.
This tracking feature of smart devices may benefit retailers. Retailers have long sought for ways to trend consumer habits and track customer behavior so that, ultimately, the gained knowledge could be exploited in the quest for increased sales. Not surprisingly, therefore, a number of systems and methods have sought to use the power of a consumer's smart device to provide retailers with useful information concerning the presence of potential customers.
Some systems and methods track a consumer's location using the global positioning system (“GPS”) functionality of the consumer's smart phone. Presumably, if the GPS coordinates transmitted from the consumer's smart device correlate with the GPS coordinates of a retail establishment, then the retailer knows the consumer is in his store. With such knowledge, a retailer may strategically coordinate sales efforts. However, the location data generated by a typical GPS function is often not accurate enough to precisely determine if a consumer is physically present within a specific retail store or area.
Other systems and methods simply create incentives, such as frequent visitor points, for consumers to “check in” to particular establishments by employing the GPS functionality, or other signal transceiving functionality, embedded in a personal smart device. Systems and methods that create incentives for consumers to “check in” to a retail establishment with a smart device usually have this feature so that the consumer will purchase a good or service while present in the retail establishment.
Current systems and methods do not provide for accurate, concrete detection of a consumer's presence in an establishment or within specific regions of an establishment. Further, current systems and methods do not provide for targeted solicitation of a consumer whose presence in a predefined proximity/area has been verified. Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for positively verifying a consumer's presence in a retail establishment such that customized, targeted sales efforts based on the consumer's preferences or habits may be pushed to the consumer's smart device in real time.